Action on worksite health and safety problems: a follow-up survey of workers participating in a hazardous waste...

In it's worker health and safety training program, the California-Arizona Consortium aims to promote worker action to improve health and safety conditions. To assess action on worker-identified health and safety problems, 278 trainees were interviewed 3-8 months after training. Associations with three outcomes were analyzed: (1) attempted action, (2) problem correction, and (3) trainee participation. Perceived management support was associated with all three outcomes, pointing to its key role in maximizing the impact of training. Odds of attempted action were 2-5 times greater with support than without. Trainees for whom English was not the primary language (mostly Spanish speakers) attempted action as often as English speakers. However, the odds of their correcting problems were half that of the English-speaking workers. It is suggested this was due to a perceived lack of control over organizational resources for change, not simply due to communication barriers.